Agricultural worker

“ A man who has regular employment at wages finds an immense advantage in a good garden allotment beside his cottage, and that is vastly increased when that cottage is on the farm, away from the temptation of the beer-shop, and where, as part of his wages, he receives the keep of a cow. This is the system in the border counties, where agriculture is in the most prosperous state, and the agricultural labourer the best fed and clothed, the most educated and intelligent of his class in any part of the three kingdoms. ”

“ And often the agricultural labourer, having tramped to town, may find no work ready to his hands. I read in the reports of the Société Nationale d’Agriculture of a certain farm in Brie, which has been bought by the Assistance Publique, in order to give work to those unhappy labouring men who have fallen into beggary among the unfriendly streets. Here, on the fields and furrows of La Chalmelle, they touch their mother earth again, like Antæus; thence they repair, sadder and wiser men, to such glebes or vineyards as are short of hire. ”

“ In all of this activity of cultivation, the rush of harvest, and regularity of day-to-day chores, the farmer worked, not alone, but in conjunction with his family. Unlike the industrial worker, whose employment was discrete and separate from his home life, the farmer's home was his workshop, and his labor directly connected to his sustenance. ”

“ Agricultural laborers are always sure of abundant employment and high wages. The labor of agriculture is of various kinds, and may be performed by any man accustomed to work, with little or no previous instruction. It consists principally in cutting up weeds with the hoe, cutting down sugar-cane, and throwing it into boats on the canals, to be transported to the sugar-house ”

“ It is, too, perhaps, among the category of neglects, and in the lack of fidelity to their own interests which pervades the agricultural community of this country, beyond those of any other profession—for we insist that agriculture, in its true and extended sense, is as much a profession as any other pursuit whatever. ”

“ An agricultural labourer, if he is fortunate enough to have—what he ought invariably to have—a rood of garden ground as part of his occupation, which he may cultivate after he has done his wage-paid work,—will grow upon it vegetables sufficient to yield him a return, after payment of rent and for seed, of at least 4l. ”

“ Agricultural labor must, therefore, be much more versatile than labor employed in large-scale industry. Most industries, moreover, are able to run along at an even pace throughout the year, 345affording steady employment to a fixed number of workers. But in most forms of agriculture, the amount of labor required is much greater at some seasons of the year than at others, thus giving the farmer a labor problem of great difficulty to contend with. ”

“ At the busy seasons of seedtime and harvest the day of the farmer and his helpers is from before sunrise until after sunset. As a result of these features the securing of a sufficient labor force at the busy seasons is an agricultural problem of great and constantly-recurring difficulty. ”

“ It is to be seen everywhere, in harvest-time as well as in spring and summer, at those frequently recurring times when English agriculture, so careful and intensive, wants extra hands. There are always too many agricultural labourers for the ordinary, and always too few for the exceptional or temporary needs of the cultivation of the soil. ”

“ The general introduction of agricultural machinery and agricultural chemistry has an inevitable tendency to demand a race of skilled labourers, instead of unintellectual serfs. But how do we deal with the labourer and his family? ”

“ In the agricultural group the unit is the farmstead. By that term is meant the whole complex organization of the farm, including the land and its products, the stock, the barns and the sheds, the whole family together with whatever houses it, the corps of workers, farmer, farmer's wife, sons, daughters, maiden aunts, working people unhired and hired—in fact, everything "animal, vegetable or mineral," as the children say when they play "Forty Questions," that ministers in any way to the success of the farm as a business and to its ultimate object, the happiness of the family living thereon. ”

“ America's agricultural industry plays an important role in our Nation's economy. It provides us with an ample supply of high-quality food and fiber and a rewarding form of employment for millions of Americans. However, farming and ranching remain among our Nation's most dangerous occupations, demanding an understanding of complex agricultural equipment, strict attention to detail, and careful performance of farm and ranch work. ”

“ And, so it has been with the agricultural laborers since 1915. Nearly every man who is eligible throws his whole spirit into the work of organizing and agitating his fellow man and many thousands of new members are taken in every year.
The I. W. W. came as a mighty boon to the harvest workers. What they have done for themselves in the past few years is but a marker in comparison to what will be accomplished in the future. ”

“ His agricultural labour consists in superintending the cultivation of the small squares left for the growth of grain in the centre of the copses, to feed and attract the pheasants, and to keep them from wandering. These have to be dug up with the spade—there would be no room for using a plough—and spade-husbandry is rather slow work. An eye has therefore to be kept on the labourers thus employed lest they get into mischief. ”

“ The farm is run under the direction of experts; the soils are treated with exactly the right fertilizers for each crop, the best paying crops are raised, the best seed is used, and the best machinery. The workers of this new agricultural co-operative receive the standard wage, and they live in homes specially built for them, with all the conveniences made possible by wholesale production. Also, these co-operators live in a democratic community; they determine their own conditions of labor, being represented on the governing board, along with the experts appointed by the state. ”

“ In the first place there is a large generation of agricultural laborers in England, now in the prime of manhood, who have just graduated, as it were, through all the scientific processes of agriculture developed in the last fifteen years. The ploughmen, cowmen, cartmen, and shepherds, even, have become familiar with the established routine; and every set of these hands can produce one or two active and intelligent laborers who will gladly and ably fill the post of under-foreman for a shilling or two a week of advanced wages. ”

“ It was not like the making of one tenth of a pin, which has a strong tendency to reduce the worker to one tenth of a man.
On the farm one usually begins and finishes a piece of work whether it be a hay-rack or a barn; he sees it through—the whole of it receives expression in him. ”

“ Wages of ordinary agricultural labourers are now, as detailed in Bara Banki, five pice or six pice, according as they offer their services or are sought; or they get grain. Handicraft-men are of course better paid, carpenters get three annas in their villages, four if they leave them, smiths the same. Local weights and measures. I have referred to this subject at great length in the Kheri and Bahraich articles. ”

“ And what should I do here gentlemen, pointing out to you the uses of agriculture? Who supplies our wants? Who provides our means of subsistence? Is it not the agriculturist? The agriculturist, gentlemen, who, sowing with laborious hand the fertile furrows of the country, brings forth the corn, which, being ground, is made into a powder by means of ingenious machinery, comes out thence under the name of flour, and from there, transported to our cities, is soon delivered at the baker's, who makes it into food for poor and rich alike. ”

“ In harvest time, the superintendence of work continues till late, and in the autumn labour is not unfrequently prolonged into the moonlight, in order to carry the corn. It is a life, on the whole, of hard work.
In all this I speak of the ordinary middle-class farmer. The life of the higher class of agriculturists, who possess large capital, and employ bailiffs and all kinds of machinery, is of course not by any means so onerous. ”

“ Then landlords were appealed to in a quiet friendly spirit to let allotments and cow land, and even under some favourable conditions a co-operative farm to the labourers. The consequence has been that gradually and without any serious ill-feeling a comfortable and satisfactory relation between employers and employed has been established; the men have not taken advantage of the farmers at the harvest, and the wages have been satisfactorily settled without any pressure. ”

“ The chaff-cutter and pump, and so on, all depend on human hands to keep them going. Such is but a very brief outline of the innumerable ways in which arable agriculture gives employment. So the labourer and the labourer's family flourish exceedingly in the corn tillage. Wages rise; he waxes fat and strong and masterful, thinking that he holds the farmer and the golden grain in the hollow of his hand.
But now a cloud arises and casts its shadow over the cottage. If the farmer depends upon his men, so do the men in equal degree depend upon the farmer. ”

“ Nor is the obstacle aversion to agricultural labour. This is no doubt a prejudice of theirs; but mere prejudices always yield, principles of action cannot be created. When the returns from agricultural labour are speedy and great, they are also agriculturists. Thus, some of the little islands on Lake St Francis, near the Indian village of St. Regis, are favourable to the growth of maize, a plant yielding a return of a hundredfold, and forming, even when half ripe, a pleasant and substantial repast. ”

“ In another particular farm labor differs from that of other forms of labor even more widely. There are sociologic as well as economic questions involved. Baldly stated, custom permits, and necessity often requires, the laborer to eat at the same table with the farm owner and in other particulars he mingles intimately with the farmer’s family. In all its bearings, this is a very important fact. It constitutes one of the greatest difficulties in the problem of securing suitable farm help. Industrial corporations employ as common laborers largely Italians, Hungarians, 198 Poles and negroes. ”

“ Any single employer of farm labor who is in a position to employ a group of boys may be assumed either to be conducting a large farm on which there is a great diversity of crops extending over a wide range of time of harvesting, or to be a specializing farmer working in an intensive way on a comparatively small area with special crops which are harvested in short periods of time. ”

“ The produce of the ground, generally potatoes and grain, makes a considerable addition to his income, but the human aspect of the system and the contentment produced, with the attachment and interest in the soil, in what is most striking in the result, and the time snatched perhaps from the public-house and the zeal and care called forth in the labourer elevating him as a man and improving him as a workman. ”

“ The carpenter also was but a poor farmer, and his crop failed. So he gave up farming, and worked away at building houses, and making tables, and chairs, and bedsteads, receiving payment in potatoes, corn, wild-fowls, eggs, or sometimes in money. In the course of two or three years, some were bakers only, some poulterers, some potato merchants, and only about half of the company were farmers; of which the consequence was the land was better tilled, the corn better ground and baked, the fowls better fed, eggs more easily to be had, the potatoes better, and the huts kept in better repair. ”

“ It would seem expedient that every Colony or Labour House should follow a mixed economy of agriculture and industry. Wherever possible, a farm should be an essential part of it, in order that all such primary necessaries of life as milk, butter, meat, roots, and vegetables, might be produced, as far as practicable, by the aid of the inmates' labour. ”

“ In spite of all modern appliances, much of the work of the farmer's household must be so characterized. The life of American farm women is, however, not now under discussion: the subject is a fruitful one, and has important bearings upon the development of the race; but what we are to consider here is simply the work and condition of the farmer himself. The milk-selling farmer—and this industry is one of the most wide-spread in Eastern farming—is more regularly employed than any other. ”

“ Therefore many farmers who could afford it will not admit the mowing-machine into their fields, and the mowers may still be seen at work over miles and miles of meadow, and are still the plague of the agriculturist. The arable farmer has just the same difficulty to keep his labourers at their work, and unless he is constantly on the watch valuable time is lost daily. In the harvest, however, he has an advantage. The corn is reaped by piece-work, and the labourers therefore strain every nerve to do as much as they can. ”

“ It is certain that without the services of these feathered laborers, whose work is unseen, though it lasts from daylight till dark through every day in the year, agriculture in this country would come to an immediate standstill, and if in the brief season of fruit each one of these workers levies on the farmer the tribute of a few berries, the price is surely a small one to pay for the great good done. ”

“ What is the farmer to do?
"How may I secure labor?" is probably the most persistent question now asked by farmers; but it is a question that cannot be answered, any more than one may tell another what crops he shall grow, what markets he shall find, or what manner of house he shall build. This is one [Pg 147] of the great problems of farming, as it is of engineering, of the building trades, and of factories. Each farmer must work it out for himself, as he works out the problem of fertility and machinery. He must work far ahead, and consider it as a part of all his plans. ”